Improve Dashboard Performance with Design Best Practices
Leverage Tableau's power to provide insightful and performant analyses
The best ways to improve dashboard performance: data source tuning + efficient workbook design
Step 1: Identify Performance Bottlenecks
Performance Recorder
The Performance Recording feature in Tableau records performance information about key events as you interact with a workbook. You can then view performance metrics in a workbook that Tableau creates to analyze and troubleshoot different events that are known to affect performance.
- Open your workbook in Tableau Desktop
- From the Help menu, select Settings and Performance > Start Performance Recording
- Interact with your dashboard to record performance data
- To stop recording and see results, go back to the Help menu and select Settings and Performance > Stop Performance Recording
Step 2: Define Performance Goals
Once your dashboard is published, establish performance goals that cater to your different audiences. For customer or executive-facing dashboards, prioritize faster load times. For analyst-facing dashboards, collaborate with analysts to ensure the dashboard meets their needs. Use your judgment, your own organization’s standards, and Tableau’s tools to identify these objectives.
Step 3: Take Action
Workbook Optimizer
The Workbook Optimizer (Tableau 2022.1 or later) evaluates a workbook’s design choices against performance best practices and provides actionable improvement recommendations.
From Tableau Desktop
- From the Server menu, select Publish Workbook > Workbook Optimizer
From Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud
- From any dashboard, click Edit from the top menu bar
- Click the drop down next to Publish > Run Optimizer
Still not seeing the performance you're looking for?
For a deeper understanding on how design choices affect dashboard performance
Performance Whitepaper
Navigate your way through common performance problems that you may encounter on the journey from personal discovery to publishing and maintaining dashboards for thousands of others. This comprehensive whitepaper provides guidance and best practices you need to deliver performant workbooks.
Help Pages
Tableau Online Help is a great place to start your performance improvement journey. Get quick tips to start your analysis, along with resources for diving deeper into performance fine points.
Performance Checklist
Even before you start building your visualizations and dashboards, it’s a good time to consider what choices might impact performance in your workbooks on Tableau Desktop, Tableau Cloud, and Tableau Server.